It’s week number four in Olympia and this Friday is cut-off day for all standing policy committees in the House and Senate. As a reminder, that generally means if it hasn’t moved onto a fiscal committee or the rules committee by Friday, it’s dead for the session. So, you can bet this will be a

…… that I started working for the state of Washington. On Monday February 1, 1988, I walked into the offices of the Senate Ways and Means Committee in what is now the A,B,C conference rooms in the John A. Cherberg Building to begin working as a fiscal analyst for the Washington State Legislature. The Friday

And I’m not just talking about the weather (which has been miserable as you know). Tomorrow we hit the one-third mark of this legislative session and while policy committees are in a full blown state of frenzy as they approach their cut-off dates next week, the hallways and corridors are filled with some apprehension and

Today at noon, House Appropriations Subcommittee on Education chair Rep. Kathy Haigh (D-Shelton) released the details of her 2008 supplemental operating budget recommendations. Unfortunately, the proposed budget represents a step backwards for the UW from the Governor’s budget recommendations issued in December. A total of $100,000 in funding for the UW’s community alert system (which had been

Just wanted to pass along some thoughts about the UW North Sound hearing on Friday afternoon in the House Capital Budget Committee. During the first couple weeks of session the debate on the new campus has been starkly different between the two legislative chambers. In the Senate, most of the disagreement seems to center on

Two weeks have now passed in the 2008 legislative session and I think we feel in State Relations like we are finally getting caught up with what seems to be another record batch of bills introduced so far. By next week, I hope to have a list of “UW High Priority Bills” posted to the

Senator Paull Shin’s bill (SB 6391) which establishes a new UW branch campus in Everett at the Pacific Station site was passed out of the Senate Higher Education Committee this afternoon by a vote of 5-1. Committee members Shin, Derek Kilmer, Jean Berkey, Jerome Delvin and Mark Schoesler voted in favor, while Tim Sheldon voted

The way this session began last week, I feel like I am aging in “dog years,” you know, each week really feels like seven weeks, or something like that. Woof. In any event, can’t be much busier than last week and besides, “it wouldn’t be fun if it was easy.” Today, the House Higher Education

Who needs………. well, you can fill in the blank. I am hard pressed to recall a day this darned busy. Lots and lots of UW stuff going on, much of which you will read about in your local papers on Friday morning. As I mentioned in the previous post, today was the big Senate hearing on the UW North Sound

Today the Senate Higher Ed committee will hold a public hearing on bills related to establishing a new UW branch campus in Snohomish County. Sen. Paull Shin’s bill would establish the campus in Everett at the Pacific Station site. Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen’s legislation would require specified criteria to be used to determine the best